Page 22 - Autumn 21

Ten Ox-herding pictures by Peter Gregory, UK
In a meeting of a group of Buddhist friends recently (by Zoom of course) I was reminded by our teachers of the “Ten Ox-herding Pictures”, which depict the spiritual progression of a Zen student. The author is said to be a Zen master of the Sung Dynasty known as Kaku-an Shi- en belonging to the Rinzai school. He also wrote poems and introductory words for each picture.
I believe the stages are universal, and apply to anyone seeking their inner truth, wherever they may find it, but I also believe they are relevant to our personal progression in learning homeopathy; they certainly resonated with my own journey, so I though it might be interesting to look at them from a homeopathic perspective. The pictures I am using were painted by Shubun, a Zen priest of the fifteenth century. The original pictures are preserved at Shokokuji, Kyoto. He was one of the greatest painters in black and white in the Ashikaga period. I plan to take them one at a time and see how it goes. Instead of the original commentaries I will try and add a haiku for each one. I hope you may find it interesting and I don’t find I am being too ambitious!
Picture 5 ‘Tending the Ox’
In this picture, the oxherder is gently tending the ox and the ox is not wild anymore. They are walking alongside each other and the oxherder is holding the rope very loosely. After having held on tight for a while it becomes easier. But he still holds loosely to the rope as he needs to be vigilant
So now we are beginning to feel more comfortable with practising homeopathy - we are getting used to seeking the information we need to make a homeopathic prescription; we can recognise some
of the more common constitutional types such as Pulsatilla and Sulphur. We start to see the patterns
of disease we have read about and see the reality
of the effect of suppressive medications. But we
have to feed our enthusiasm; if we do not we will become dissatisfied and gradually let go. We will return to conventional practice because it is so much easier. – the ox will wander off and disappear. So we buy some more books, and read them – in bed, in the bath. And finally we decide to join a course.
My copy of Boericke has water marks on the pages where I dropped it in the bath; my copies of Mary Tyler’s Homeopathic drug pictures and Gibson’s Studies of Homeopathic Remedies are similarly worn.
For several years I oscillated between Australia and England doing short-term locum appointments and then relatively long stints in more than one practice. It wasn’t always possible to practice homeopathy but I did have periods of work for Chris Day and John Saxton When I couldn’t use homeopathy I felt like I had one hand tied behind my back and I gradually realised I could never go back to purely conventional practice.
But just as important was finding the BAHVS, which had been founded in 1982. I imagine I joined around 1986. I had joined a community, which fed me on a deeper level
than simply
knowledge. In 1987 the recently- formed IAVH held its inaugural conference in Oxford. There I met Tim Couzens and made several more friends. My support network was growing, complete, but I needed to ‘tend the bull’ so I joined only the third intake of the course in veterinary homeopathy at the Faculty of Homeopathy in London. Three years later, along with
Tim and Graham Goodridge, I took the exams.
So in the BAHVS, the Faculty of Homeopathy and the IAVH we have a world-wide network for support, which also helps to satisfy our thirst for knowledge. This is ‘tending the bull’.
Later get used to the not knowing
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